cross roads, that's kinda what I figured. I was looking in the datasheet and it sure seems capable of charging up no problem. Heck my pot just happens to be exactly what the ADC wants, as it's designed for a 10k or less ohm source.
I am going to tweak the sketch so it just reads every 10mS beginning to end, so I can see where those jumps come from. maybe it's noise, maybe its the motor coming back on. My wiring is very convoluted, they are very well seperated on the power side of things, opto-isolated relay triggers etc, but there is a common ground bus right outside of everything that goes back ot the battery with a 16 guage wire. but grounds are separate for as long as possible.